


Chocolate Orange

by Phase7, PunishedPyotr



Series: Only Ones and Zeros [13]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: DO NOT make DDLB/littlespace comments please I know I deserve them, Digital Art, Full Color, Illustrated, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also I make some child molestation jokes, by popular(?) demand, child!Mantis, nothing happens, only like two though, reupload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 00:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13892877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phase7/pseuds/Phase7, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunishedPyotr/pseuds/PunishedPyotr
Summary: I never meant to be so bad to you





	Chocolate Orange

**Author's Note:**

> Phase7 drew the lovely artwork at the end -- I would say that it's what inspired this fic, but truthfully I was planning something like this anyway. He just managed to predict it, perhaps he's an IRL precog?! Anyway, since he did, I went ahead and wrote it... ;0

It’s been two and a half weeks since Liquid has last seen Mantis, and saying he was bored out of his mind is an understatement. 

In fact he’s gone far _past_ bored — he’s _frustrated_. He’s _upset_. He’s _angry_ at Mantis for staying away for so long even though he _knows_ it’s not his fault, he can’t help it, he’d be here in a heartbeat if he could just find the chance to abandon the girl to her Patriot training. Liquid knows he’ll _be_ back, eventually, hopefully soon, and he knows that when Mantis gets back he’ll be exhausted and probably just as frustrated as Liquid is… so even though Liquid feels like strangling Mantis right now for neglecting him he knows he _shouldn’t_. Doesn’t change how he feels, though.

This wouldn’t be so rough on him if he actually had something to _do_ around here.

For awhile he just ran pretend missions with the Gurlukovich soldiers and Gray Fox, but after so many months their routes and reactions have become terribly predictable. At first changing their difficulty settings helped, but they were at their most difficult to begin with and the easier settings are, well, too easy. He got bored. After ten days he decided to see what would happen if he duplicated the Gray Fox AI, but he did it… rather poorly and all the duplicates were horrifying, glitched-out, horrendously overpowered and unpredictable monstrosities and one of them managed to deeply wound Liquid before he remembered how to deactivate hostile AIs. The wound in question hurt like hell and bled a lot, but eventually the pain faded to just a dolorous ache and the bleeding tapered off to the point where he could control it with a lot of bandages wrapped around his torso. He’s just been living like that for the past week.

Liquid doesn’t know how to soft-reset himself and his horrible gaping wound admittedly _does_ bother him and forces him to keep looking for things to _do_ just to distract himself from the pain, but after considering the possibility of letting one of the AIs kill him so he could just sleep until Mantis got back, he decided against that. He doesn’t _know_ when Mantis will get back, so he doesn’t know how long he’d _be_ dreaming, which wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t… somewhat reluctant to open himself up to the possibility of being trapped in a nightmare for days, possibly weeks at this point. They’re PTSD-related sleep terrors, not regular nightmares, so even with the relative lucidity during his dreams here, he won’t be able to get out of them on his own.

So, wounded and lacking his primary source of entertainment (or at least stimulation), Liquid tried to get in touch with Emmerich again. It didn’t go so well; Liquid only got three responses before Emmerich told him to stop spamming his email inbox. Seems like _everybody’s_ too busy to talk to Liquid nowadays. Other avenues of internet entertainment didn’t work out so well either, he was continually thwarted by CAPTCHAs and his perpetual difficulty in figuring out what image posts were actually, well, images _of_. He’d even tried watching movies and videos, but like before that frustrated him as well, since he has no idea what was going on on the screen and has to rely entirely on audio.

He also tried to reconnect with the _other_ Liquid Snake, the confused AI Mantis ported over a while back who still hasn’t been deleted for some reason, just to have someone to talk to. But despite Liquid initially trying to approach him amicably, or at least civilly, it took less than five minutes for it to devolve into a hissing, spitting argument, and with his injury Liquid didn’t want to get into a proper fight, so he just deactivated his AI self again and brooded about it for half an hour before going to find something else to do.

In summary, Liquid simply, plainly, _undeniably_ has _nothing_ to do around here. He is sick and _tired_ of Shadow fucking Moses Island.

And then he finds himself in the kitchen and realizes that there’s actually food in there.

Now, eating while bored was not something Liquid had ever been accused of in life, even though it was… fairly true. Kind of the inevitable result of his life-long habit of hoarding food whenever he has access to some. (So in life, when he’d still run FOXHOUND, he’d always had at least one desk drawer with snacks and candy in it, and even more stashed in his quarters.) He’d never run into any trouble with it since, being so active, he had a high metabolism anyway.

But it was never something he’d done here - he’d simply never been hungry. Why would he? There was no reason to program that in. And after smashing up a watermelon just because he _can_ , Liquid eats nearly all of it before he realizes that eating has no actual effect on him now. It’s like the food just disappears as soon as he swallows it (actually, it probably does). An entire watermelon doesn’t make him feel any fuller, and after hours and hours have passed there’s _still_ no need to use the bathroom, just as always here.

What the hell, though. He still has a sense of taste, even if it seems pretty weird to him after spending four years as an arm and then never bothering to see if it still fully existed when he ended up in the computer simulation. So, the watermelon… it’s sweet. And he quickly figures out how to spawn another one. And it’s not _just_ watermelon here.

Long story short, Liquid decides to learn how to cook properly and starts teaching himself how to make desserts. Simply because he’s so bored and frustrated and lonely.

Two and half weeks after Liquid last saw Mantis, Mantis suddenly arrives back at the Shadow Moses simulation and flops onto a breakroom couch, sighing heavily. He can sense Liquid hanging out in the kitchens, and he knows Liquid can sense him, but unlike usual Liquid doesn’t come charging into whatever room Mantis appeared in.

Mantis sighs again, sitting up. That’s probably expected. Even though Liquid knows he has no right or reason to be angry at Mantis for being gone so long, he’s still going to be a passive-aggressive shithead about this. Mantis wants to get angry right on back - it’s _unfair_ \- but forces himself to keep calm. Maybe Mantis’ last almost-three weeks have been more physically and mentally draining, but Liquid’s been pretty much completely isolated, so that’s just completely _wrecked_ his emotional state and it can’t be helped.

Feeling rather sorry for himself, Mantis gets up and plods to the kitchen. He stands in the doorway and greets Liquid: “You have no right to be irritated with me.”

“I’m not irritated with you,” Liquid says, but his tone of voice is, in fact, irritated and too cool, and he doesn’t even look at Mantis when he says it. He’s focused more on the blender he’s leaning over, adding ingredients to. What the heck is he…? Mantis is distracted by the fact that Liquid’s coat is hanging open and he has bandages all across his torso, spotted with blood. Mantis narrows his eyes slightly, then gives his hand an irritable little wave, resetting Liquid’s injury variables without any ado and deleting the bandages.

He _knows_ Liquid noticed suddenly being healed, but he doesn’t say anything, deliberately ignoring Mantis.

“You’re welcome, Eli,” Mantis says pointedly.

Still ignoring him.

Biting back his desire to lash out, Mantis takes a chair and sits across the counter from Liquid, resting his chin in his hands and glaring at him. He gets under Liquid’s skin eventually, and Liquid slams his hands down on the counter - a peeled orange he was holding in one hand squishing messily, but he doesn’t notice.

“What do you _want_ , Mantis?!”

“Not to be parted from you for nearly three weeks, that’s for certain. I came back as soon as I could, Eli.”

“Did you now?”

“Of course I did.”

Liquid snorted. “Well, I’m sorry I _interrupted_ your oh-so-important work with the _Patriots_ ,” he sneers, “don’t let it happen again, Mantis, I’m perfectly _fine_ here on my own.”

Mantis bites his tongue. It’s like Liquid _wants_ him to snap at him— well, actually he kind of does. He’s frustrated, feels like picking a fight with Mantis would make him feel better somehow. But _Mantis_ doesn’t want to fight, he wants to relax. He’s exhausted.

The trouble is Mantis doesn’t know what to say to calm Liquid down, and when Mantis doesn’t reply Liquid just gets even more upset, stomping over to a roll of paper towels that he practically brutalizes in the process of cleaning up the remnants of orange. If this had been real life, not VR, Liquid would probably have burst into angry tears at least five minutes ago. He’s so stressed it’s making _Mantis’_ chest ache.

Mantis takes a deep breath. The only thing he can think of to do is, admittedly, the _dumbest possible_ plan he can come up with, but the sad part is that he already _knows_ it’s going to work. He just isn’t sure how much _he’s_ going to like it.

By the time Liquid looks up again from his clean-up, Mantis has already changed appearance so that he looks exactly the way he looked when Liquid first met him, bright red hair, straightjacket, diminutive size and all.

Liquid stops in his tracks.

“Yes?” Mantis says as innocently as possible, having changed his voice to as close as he could remember what he sounded like as a child (once he’d started actually speaking). Liquid’s eyes go very wide, and he blinks a few times, very obviously unsure of how to feel right now.

Then he puts a hand over his mouth. “You’re so _cute_ …!”

Success.

Liquid almost dives over the counter to scoop the now-tiny Mantis up, nearly knocking over the blender in the process. His demeanor has changed completely - he’s not resentful and hurt anymore, he’s instead just about _gushing_ over how ‘adorable’ Mantis is/was. Mantis can’t help but feel a twinge of nervousness as Liquid squeezes him to his chest, yammering on about how small and precious he looks — Liquid’s sort of always had a little… problem with cute aggression, to the point where as a teenager he’d had a relatively short-lived hobby of finding and collecting stuffed animals he considered adorable only to gleefully tear them to shreds. Rather like a little girl who pampers her doll and then unceremoniously decapitates it and throws its body out the window, simply because that seems like a fitting end for something she likes so much. Humans are weird.

“I get it, Eli,” Mantis says, trying to push himself away from him with his hands against his face - sort of weird and awkward, considering they’re covered by the sleeves of his straightjacket. No wonder he’d developed an over-reliance on his psychokinesis as a kid, he couldn’t get anything done dressed like this. “Let me breathe. Put me down!”

“You’re so _darling_ , Mantis, I just want to rip you to pieces—“

“That- that is _exactly_ what worries me, Eli!”

“Just look at you!!”

Mantis has made a huge mistake, he’s pretty sure.

Liquid doesn’t put Mantis down and instead carries him out of the kitchen, humming, and Mantis kind of instinctively wraps his arms around his neck, grumbling. The way he sees it, there are only three ways this can go: Liquid actually _does_ get aggressive with him, and Mantis learns what it’s like to get injured in the VR; Liquid decides he wants to spoil him and treats him like a baby, which although the prospect is irritating that’s honestly the ideal outcome here; or Liquid goes completely overboard and ends up molesting Mantis. Thankfully Mantis doesn’t see anything like that in Liquid’s thoughts, because he isn’t sure how he would deal with that if it did happen, but… that’s sort of a ‘one thing just lead to another thing’, wasn’t it…? Perhaps he should keep his guard up…

He’s brought to the exact same breakroom he just left, where Liquid sits down on the couch and doesn’t let Mantis escape form his lap even though he tries to squirm out of it. (Did he bring him here just because he wanted to carry him around for a little bit?) Liquid just reaffirms his grip and laughs, “Where do you think you’re going?” Then he nuzzles him, completely and utterly enamored with Mantis’ youthful appearance.

“Eli-! Just because I _look_ like a child does not mean I want to be _treated_ like—“

“You brought this upon yourself,” Liquid says with a grin, then with one hand he undoes the latches on Mantis’ gas mask and lets it fall to the floor. Mantis immediately claps his sleeves over his face, mortified. “Oh, come on, Mantis!”

“This is just too much, I was only trying to cheer you up…”

“Yet you haven’t changed yourself back yet,” Liquid says, combing his fingers through Mantis’ hair. Mantis hisses, called out. He tells himself that he just likes the mood he’s managed to put Liquid in by changing his ‘body’ to be like this, but truthfully he kind of wants to be spoiled… 

And dammit, Liquid picks up on that thought. Mantis’ face is burning. Liquid pulls his arms away from it, slipping one hand down almost to his butt — but it’s innocent, he’s just lifting him up a little so he can cover his face in chaste kisses while he ineffectually flails and kicks his legs, embarrassed. He can hear Liquid thinking about how adorable he is, especially when he squeaks in protest, writhing.

Oh god, Mantis really _is_ going to get himself molested at this rate, isn’t he?

“You’re so _little_ ,” Liquid murmurs against the top of his head, “I can do whatever I want with you…”

“Wh-what?! Eli, no! I— I’m not comfortable with—!”

Liquid just laughs at him, nuzzling him again. “Don’t worry, Mantis,” he says, “honestly… I’m not going to do anything bad to you. What do you take me for?”

“O-Oh… ah…”

“You’re so high-strung.”

“You’re- ridiculous!”

Liquid keeps threading his fingers through Mantis’ hair, humming again, and after a while, almost despite himself, Mantis relaxes against Liquid’s body. It’s really quite surreal, the fact that Liquid is more than twice his size now, but that just means he fits even better in Liquid’s lap, his head now on the perfect level for resting against his chest. It’s been a _long_ two and half a weeks, anyway, he’s exhausted… it can’t be helped…

“You feel better too, eh?” Liquid says, moving his hand down to rub Mantis’ back. Mantis’ nod turns into a tired little nuzzle against Liquid’s collarbones.

“I missed you…”

“I know, I did too. I’m… sorry I lashed out at you earlier, I was just…”

“…frustrated? I know, Eli.”

Liquid chuckles, kisses the top of Mantis’ head. “How _was_ your week? Well, almost three weeks...”

Mantis kicks his bare feet slightly. “ _Long_ ,” he complains, “something big is going down, but they won’t tell me _what_. And everyone has those accursed cybernetic implants, so I cannot simply pull the information from someone’s mind… to be honest, I am not even sure that my telepathy would even work as well as it used to even if I did have access to someone in the real world whose mind I _could_ read. I believe my powers are affected - limited - by the girl’s brain…”

“What about your psychokinesis and… everything else?”

“Difficult to test without attracting unwanted attention… I know my psychokinesis is a tad stunted in the real world now, but not _overly_ so…”

Liquid can’t concentrate. The seriousness of Mantis’ report of the past two and half weeks and the state of his psychic powers in somebody else’s body is completely undermined by the fact that it’s being delivered by, for all intents and purposes, a child. It makes Liquid want to giggle like a schoolboy. Mantis flushes. Liquid thinks that’s cute, too.

“What?” Liquid says, nuzzling him again. “Go on.”

“Um… that is all I had to say.”

“I see… well, I didn’t have anything to do while you were gone, so…”

“Next time I have to go, I will have environmental data for someplace _else_ with me when I come back,” Mantis mumbles, “you won’t have to stay on Shadow Moses forever, Eli. I promise.”

“…” Liquid stands up - Mantis throws his arms around his neck again, surprised, and may or may not have smacked Liquid in the side of the face with one of his belts in the process. Liquid doesn’t comment, though. “I’ve been teaching myself to make desserts,” he says, “do you want a milkshake?”

“Eh?”

“I was working on a new recipe when you came home… chocolate orange, since someone programmed chocolate ice cream into the freezer. Does that sound good to you?”

“Eli… you know I don’t exactly… eat very much. Especially sweets…”

“Don’t you want to at least try some?”

Liquid’s already walking back to the kitchen, so Mantis just nods. He might as well. So Liquid puts him back in the same chair he’d dragged him out of and goes back around to the other side of the counter. Mantis watches him get a new orange, peel it and pick the seeds out, and drop it in the blender with the cocoa powder that’s just been sitting in there for the past half hour… he gets the other ingredients and finishes making the milkshake without commentary, although he’s humming again.

Mantis realizes very belatedly he’s been humming a song they first heard on the helicopter flight back to Mother Base when they first met.

Minutes later Liquid has taken over Mantis’ chair, and Mantis is sitting in his lap again, sipping on the milkshake. It’s good. Liquid’s playing with his hair, happy. Everything’s good.

Maybe it can stay that way for just a little while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> The simulation was designed for Raiden to go through, why the hell _wouldn't_ it have watermelon and oranges
> 
> (do i still need to tell you all that i'll pass on comments to aireyv? or does everyone know that by now and it doesn't matter anymore -pp)


End file.
